A focus on sports in Cincinnati, but I do tend to digress, so who knows where it will go!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Top 10 Movies where someone "Loses it."

I saw "Taken" this weekend, with Liam Neeson. It was an excellent revenge movie with a lot of action, but I was even more excited to see a movie where a guy just loses it and does anything to accomplish his goal. I won't ruin too much of the movie for anyone, but it did get me thinking of some of the all time best, not just revenge movies, but movies where someone loses touch with reality and lets literally nothing stop them from accomplishing their goal.

Keep in mind that there are revenge movies that will not appear n this list, such as, "Start Trek II the Wrath of Kahn." It is an excellent movie even if you are not a Star Trek fan, but Kahn doesn't really lose it, he is a very calm villain, calculating, he doesn't really go crazy. On the opposite side of the spectrum the Joker is always crazy, so, "The Dark Knight" can't be used since there is never really a normal period for the Joker.

For the movies I have chosen all the main characters where normal people for the most part that had something happen to them or their family that made them "snap" and go through the rest of the movie with a glorious unempathetic rage! Also I am limiting this to movies that I have seen and can remember, so I am sure I am missing some good ones.

Man On Fire. Once John's new BFF is kidnapped it is all over. I could not still still during his interrogations, but it was awesome to see how calm he was while cutting off fingers!

Rambo. Take your pick, but I lean towards the first one. A war hero comes to town and a uppity sheriff decides to hassle him, bad move sheriff.

Desperado. All "El Mariachi" wanted to do was play his guitar and make love to his wife, but noooooo, the local drug lord couldn't have that, so he killed El's wife and wounded El. Should have killed him, because the fire of revenge burned so hot no guitar could help. This jumps up so high on the list because it has a very HOT Salma Hayek in it.

Taken. Some Albanians made the mistake of kidnapping a former operatives daughter to turn her into an international sex slave. You know he means business when he shoots his former friends wife in order to get information.

Falling Down. Not really a revenge flick here, just a good old fashioned psychotic breakdown! All the dude wants is to see his daughter on her birthday and the world conspires against him. Don't worry though, he will find a way to get back at the world. I love this film, because you can almost see something like this actually happening.

Carrie. If you are still mean to people in high school after this movie you have balls!

Death Wish. Don't mess with architects, ever. Especially if the architect is Charles Bronson.

The Punisher. Can't a guy go on vacation with his extended family without all of them getting killed, not if you are Frank Castle and pissed off a drug runner!

4 comments:

good list, forgot about Sweeney Todd! Let me think about this one, I thought Girl, Interrupted would work but she was already crazy. I think Angelina Jolie in Changling would qualify because she is a mom on a mission to find her son and won't stop. She actually fought against the corrupt LA Police - great movie!!

Andy, all good choices ant they were on my radar, with the exception of Toxic Avenger. I would say that no one really loses it in those though. Most of those are Pretty calculated.

Wyatt kind of does late in the movie.The Saints were pretty crazy the whole movie. Lucky Number Slevin is pretty calculated, same for V vor Vendetta, The Count would have made a top 15 list for sure, but again a little too calculated.